


Borders and Horizon Lines

by Lirillith



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Flashbacks, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two kids fall in love on a very strange field trip gone terribly wrong.  Two people who aren't kids any more have to live with themselves, and the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vintar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vintar/gifts).



> Happy holidays, and thank you so much for the opportunity to write for these two! :D 
> 
> That "choose not to warn" doesn't mean there's nothing warn-worthy: there are references to suicide, brief but graphic depictions of violence, non-graphic references to animal death/harm, and general references to the kind of things SHSL Despair did.
> 
> Family names come after given names in Sonia's narration, but are placed first in Gundam's.

When Sonia stepped out of her coffin, unsteady on her feet as a newborn fawn but moving more like a zombie thanks to cramped and stiffened limbs, the first thing she did was seek out the vessel bearing Gundam Tanaka's name. In the half-light, she was grateful to see that it was printed in Latin letters as well as in Japanese.

The green lights within and the thick glass obscured her view of his face, but she could see enough. He had a beard, now, not as long as Hinata's but thicker than Kuzuryuu's. There were no marks on his face or head; the scar over his eye was almost invisible without the cosmetics he'd once used to highlight it. Both his hands were intact. She could see nothing else. But he was still there, and that was enough. 

She wanted to keep looking at him, to hold onto what she could and reconstruct the most ragged of her memories, but the others were there, each a walking question, an illustration of the life she didn't want to remember. Above his scraggly beard, Kuzuryuu's eye was still covered in bandages. Souda's hair, cropped short, was half black and half bleached to a harsh yellow. Hinata's hair reached below his knees and his beard was so long and flowing she couldn't help thinking of Saint Nicholas, and Owari was gaunt. Sonia wondered what they saw in her. She felt the casket at the back of her knees like a support. 

Their coffins were arranged like the spokes of the wheel around a central hub of electronics, and the trio who'd come into the simulation for them stood outside that wheel, watchful and quiet. No one was speaking. Sonia cleared her throat, delicately, and then Owari, raspy-voiced but still so clearly herself, asked, "So Hinata. Need me to smack some sense into you?"

* * *

Wakefulness felt as though it had come slowly, but when he finally emerged from the half-death of sleep, it was in a rush, an abrupt awareness of sundry aches and sorenesses, the cramped space he was in and the open space in front of him. He sat up, pushing at the walls constricting his lateral movement, and was immediately confined again, arms wrapping around him as a woman cried out, "Tanaka-san!" 

Struggle was reflexive and only half-conscious. "Unhand me!" he said. His voice was uneven with disuse, yet his throat felt raw. He was hungry, weary despite sleep, and he had no idea where he was. What had been done to him? The woman did not release her hold, though she'd left one of his arms free. There were others, keeping a distance that suggested they, at least, had some fear of his powers. Yet the woman's grasp of him was closer to an embrace than an attempt to detain him. "Who are you?" he asked. When he pushed at her shoulder with his unencumbered arm, he was more gentle than he'd intended in his initial struggle.

"Tanaka-san!" she repeated, though her tone this time was reproachful. She loosened her grip, pulling back to look at him. 

Golden hair, deep blue eyes, skin like porcelain, and a look of hurt and confusion on her beautiful face. She was... she... His heart lurched and reeled. _Tanaka-san? Do you not have anything to say?_ she asked, her voice very small. He remembered her wrapping the end of his scarf around her neck, saying, _This is quite soft! I understand why you wear this scarf all the time!_ and beaming at him; while he was still flustered, and unable, of course, to pull away, Sun-D had begun traversing the scarf between them, sniffing and investigating the whole way, and she'd begun to giggle. _Venturing beyond the borders of the Tanaka Kingdom?_ she'd said. _I shall have to check your passport._

He didn't remember what he'd done, whether he'd scooped up his wayward dark deity and fled in flustered bewilderment or let her take charge of Sun-D for a time, but he remembered her smile, the feeling that they were physically connected, the fact that the look in her eyes was directed at him. And he also remembered her imperious tone in the school dining hall: _Tanaka-san, keep your rodents off the dining table. It's unsanitary! You're not the only one who has to eat here._

"Sonia," he murmured, and the way her face brightened made all his confusion and discomfort small and unimportant, yet the other memory was just as real. What did this mean? Some sort of spell, no doubt, but which was the illusion and which was reality? And he felt a silent dread, a nagging reminder that he was just a deluded little boy playing pretend. "No," he whispered. "What is this?"

"Do you remember the trial?" someone asked behind him.

He remembered a trial. More than one, but he remembered being on trial, remembered panic as the tide turned against him and relief that he had not doomed the others. But the trial was an odd, dream-like echo of other memories, of the broadcast murder game, where Monobear presided as opponent, judge, mastermind and executioner. There had been a statue of one of those students in the Muscat House. 

"Can you stand?" Sonia asked him. 

"Monobear was..." They'd seen Monobear for the first time on the island, and in Junko's dorm room, passing the prototype from hand to hand. A mascot, a symbol, a representation of the twins; it was perfect, they'd all agreed. _Much more useful than Tanaka-san's pets,_ Sonia had commented. 

"You," he said, trying to draw away from Sonia. "What are you scheming, she-wolf of Novoselic? Is this sorcery your doing?"

"Of course not!" A poorly chosen time for an accusation; he could barely be certain she was smiling, let alone watch for any change in her expression. "Tanaka-san, you remember the island, don't you?"

A spell. She'd cast some sort of spell on him, engineered this dream to weaken him and confuse him and make him trust her. He was at a grave disadvantage here — disoriented, weak, near-helpless and outnumbered. If this was an attack or plot, if he was imprisoned, he would do well to proceed with care, yet caution had never been in his nature, and he might already have shown his hand. "I remember," he said, finally.

"That was real too. Everything we experienced there was real."

"Impossible. Weakened I may be, but—"

"It's complicated, but please trust us. We'll do our very best to explain everything," she said, and a murmur of assent from the others echoed her. He took a moment to look around at those behind her. A tall, thin woman with wild, windblown hair; a short, baby-faced lad with an eyepatch; a young man who looked utterly ordinary save for the one cowlick of hair that shot skyward from his head; and a fellow in mechanic's overalls with short hair, all dyed an intense, unappealing pink. Their appearances were all unsettling, just slightly at odds with what he expected... from his memories of the island. From his real memories. 

It was as though the people he'd known — for he recognized most of them as followers of Lady Junko — had attempted to remake themselves as the students from the island. Yet he knew they were the same people; he knew the island had been populated, dream-like, by people he'd already known, though some were virtually unrecognizable. 

"Let's get you out of here, first of all," the young man with the cowlick said. 

Gundam ignored the proffered hand, the attempt at support from Sonia, and put his hands on the sides of the vessel that had confined him. He pushed himself up, only to stagger when he tried to stand upright, and he was in no condition to avoid Sonia's help, or that of the thin woman on the other side. He refused to move further until the dizziness subsided. Weak, indeed. He hadn't realized the extent of it.

"Where are—" he began, then cut himself off. He'd meant to ask after the Four Dark Gods of Destruction, the four hamsters he'd kept as his constant companions throughout his school days. They'd all died of old age by the middle of his third year. He felt foolish and ashamed of showing weakness by reverting to his youth in that way. Had the others caught his blunder? He couldn't be sure. His vision swam when he looked from one face to the next. He could focus on the vessel beneath him, and when he moved his eyes, slowly, over the rest of the room, starting at the floor, he realized it was one spoke of a wheel of... sarcophagi of some sort. Only a few were open as his was. He'd been entombed, and then released— to what purpose? Small wonder he felt so lightheaded.

"We're going to take you to your room, all right?" That was Sonia.

"My chambers or my cell," he said, finally. "I may be in no condition to defy you as yet, but I assure you all, your time will come."

"Well, he sure _sounds_ like himself," the short one said, with a sardonic touch that Gundam vowed to remember when his vengeance was at hand.

* * *

The five of them, the survivors of the simulation, spent the first days after they awakened trying to recreate themselves as they wanted to be, or felt they should be. Souda bleached the dark half of his hair, and then dyed all of it pink once more. Hinata cut his hair, with assistance from Kuzuryuu to tidy it; they both started laughing when his ahoge emerged. Owari stuffed herself at every meal, then dropped to the floor by the table to do pushups. But Sonia found that her greatest disconnect was not in the mirror but in her pocket. What tripped her up, every time, was the hamsters. 

They'd come to her after Tanaka-san's execution, the largest of them (Cham-P, she thought) dragging a scrap of scarf. She'd taken them into her room and demanded of Monobear that he open Tanaka-san's cottage, and she'd spent all night moving their habitat — he would never have called it a cage, because who could cage even a defeated deity? — into her room. Hamsters were territorial and prone to fight, even those as well-trained and preternaturally intelligent as Tanaka-san's Dark Gods, and Sonia wasn't very adept in handling them, so she'd leave three in their habitats in her cottage, and take the fourth — a different one each day — in her pocket everywhere she went. The fourth hamster and the scrap of scarf. 

But of course, the real hamsters had long since passed away, well before they ever entered the simulation. Tanaka-san's companions on the island had been based on his memories. Several times a day, Sonia reached into her pocket to find it empty, or to find a few sunflower seeds she'd slipped into it without thinking. The real scarf, too, was long gone, and while it crossed her mind to learn to knit or crochet to make him another, she didn't have the patience. For weeks after she awoke, Sonia was restless, constantly fidgeting when she had to sit still and always on the move whenever possible, as though by walking over every inch of the real islands, pacing the ferry boats and rummaging through the markets, she could outrun her past. 

And it did give her something to tell Tanaka-san. Every day, in the evening, she'd begin making her way back from her explorations to the Future Foundation building, already composing her daily report. She'd bypass their quarters and go below ground, to the facility they'd all taken to calling "the pod room," and tell him what she'd found that day.

* * *

_"Tanaka-san, it's me. Sonia. I don't know if you can hear me like this, but they say patients in comas can sometimes hear their visitors, so it's worth a try, isn't it?_

_"I've been exploring the real island now that I'm strong enough to move around. The island really was eerily accurate! The simulation, I mean. There are more things on most of the real islands, but every location that was in the simulation has been precisely the same in reality. The only thing the simulation was missing was dust, I think. And weather."_

_"Tanaka-san, it's so exciting! I saw parrots up in the trees today! I know that's absolutely normal for a tropical island, but it's my first time staying on a real tropical island. I remember that the lack of animals in the simulation bothered you, so of course I thought of you right away."_

_"I finally made myself go to the fourth island today. They call it the Tulgey Wood. The amusement park is real, but it's completely different from the one in the simulation — it's all done with a Lewis Carroll theme, of course. That was kind of a relief, but I still didn't spend very long there._

_"I did see a dolphin jumping while I was riding the ferry back from there, though! That was exciting. And I think I saw a monkey in one of the trees while I was walking back to the hotel. The rest of us are staying in the same set of bungalows we had in the simulation — it was very strange for a little while, but I think I'm used to it now."_

_"Tanaka-san, good news! If you heard some sort of commotion earlier, there was a good reason for it. Hanamura-san woke up!"_

* * *

Gundam had no intention of saying so to his captors or comrades, but his "room" certainly had the appearance of a guest's accommodations rather than a prisoner's. He watched suspiciously as the five of them fussed with curtains and checked a chest of drawers and otherwise hovered like a improbably large group of doting parents leaving a child at boarding school for the first time. A report sat on the nightstand, and while at least three of them had assured him, separately, that it would explain everything, holding it and reading it seemed an impossible burden. Nonetheless, he remained upright, refusing to get under the covers or lie down on the pillow Sonia fluffed for him. 

"Have I not slept enough?" he demanded.

"Maybe so, but take it from me, it helps," Kuzuryuu said. "We all went through the same thing." 

_But none of you were Tanaka Gundam,_ he thought. Something stopped him from saying it aloud. Finally, they filed out, leaving him with a third reminder about the location of the bathroom, and he was alone. 

Entirely alone, without animal companions of any kind, for the first time in years. But that wasn't strictly true — he'd been alone in the Future Foundation's custody, as well. It only felt true because of the immediacy of the false memories. 

A spell. An illusion. A ploy by the Future Foundation, an attempt at mind control; he had heard them refer to a "simulation." 

Gundam was no longer sixteen, no longer the boy who introduced himself as the world's next ruler. He knew that even when he _was_ sixteen, he and Sonia Nevermind had scarcely spoken, yet the false memories from "the island," as the party who'd awakened him had called it, felt as real as the true memories, and more recent. When he resisted their reality, he still found himself suspecting a magical plot, machinations by his enemies. Perhaps Sonia Nevermind herself was a sorceress, tinkering with his thoughts and heart for her own ends. 

Ludicrous, yet in its way, no more or less implausible than the vision or dream or spell he'd experienced. No less implausible than the idea that he might have become a very different person under other circumstances; that he might have been surrounded by comrades, even friends. That he and Sonia Nevermind might have been lovers. That these bonds might have moved him to put his own life on the line rather than passively accept death.

Those bonds were not real. Whatever the source of the dream of the island, he _knew_ his mind was compromised and his emotions suspect. No, friendship was an illusion, love a fleeting intoxication. Nothing could change a man that way except despair, or hope. The illusion lacked even plausibility. A foolish attempt, all in all, whatever the purpose may have been; an attempt at undermining his dedication to despair, at humiliating him or confusing him, at controlling him...

But was he really so important as to merit such an attempt? He did not, and never had, lived in the realms of sorcery and demonic powers. Tanaka Gundam was not a cursed soul fated to solitude and eternal sorcerous struggle; he was just one of Lady Junko's lesser minions. Perhaps he should read that report after all, but it was true that the comfort of the bed was welcome after his enforced stasis in the sarcophagus. Too welcome for him to wish to leave it merely to bathe and groom himself. At some point he had moved to a reclining position. 

Tanaka Gundam might not be a unique, cursed, demonic soul fated to solitude and to eternal sorcerous struggle, but one thing had never changed; he was not the kind of person meant for happiness, success or love. Why should he be fooled by an amateurish attempt at convincing him otherwise? Why should he fear what he might dream next, if he gave in to the heaviness in his limbs and succumbed to real sleep? Why should he worry that it was his own mind, and not that infernal coffin, that had supplied such childishly optimistic visions?

He needed more information, and he needed to refresh himself, but more than that, he needed oblivion. Needed it badly enough to risk dreams.

* * *

Whatever dreams his beleaguered and addled brain chose to create were harmless, at least, and failed to linger. By the light slanting through the window, it was late afternoon when he awakened, and only then did he realize he had no idea of the approximate time when he'd come to this room. Nor did he know how much time had passed. It could have been more than a day, for all that he knew. But it mattered little, all in all. It was daylight; he could tend to his ablutions in the facilities his five possible captors had so insistently indicated, and then read this report that was to explain everything. 

He was surprised to find that they trusted him with a razor, but there was little point to ending his existence here and now. Senseless self-destruction by individuals did nothing to spread despair, after all. It took publicity and scale to transform death into a message. Perhaps they remembered as much.

A shower, and the somewhat haphazard removal of a fairly established beard — trimming it first might have been advisable, he realized midway through the process — left him feeling as if he were really alive again. The clothing he found in the chest of drawers, a black tee-shirt and pair of loose pants, strongly resembled pajamas, but at least it was not a hospital gown.

He was still somewhat uncomfortable with his hair, however. It was no longer partially shaved as it had been when he was younger, and he felt the need to remedy that, but suspected the small razor he'd been given would be no match for the task. He further suspected the urge itself; was it physical comfort that motivated him, or some desire to return to this illusory field trip? 

No matter, for now. The report awaited, and it promised to be slow and dry reading. 

 

Slow and dry it was, but its subject matter was absorbing, describing the nature and purpose of the simulated field trip he and Lady Junko's other surviving heralds of despair had experienced. Their captors had determined that the seeds of despair had been sown, for each of them, in high school, the result of isolation, loneliness, and rejection. Therefore, their captors had concluded with childish naivete and optimism, if their high school days could be replaced with memories of friendship and trust, they could be recreated as obedient little devotees of hope. The simulation was designed accordingly, to give them a relaxing, peaceful setting and an incentive to interact with and befriend one another. 

They had underestimated the power and dedication of Super High School Level Despair, though, as they admitted to his great satisfaction. The second section detailed the ways the plan had been undermined, and he was nearly to the end of its introduction when a knock at the door made him jump. He set the papers aside and rose to answer it, absently noting that the room had darkened noticeably as he read. Perhaps if he had been unoccupied at the time of the knock he would have considered who might come to seek him out, or braced himself for the sight of her. But he was surprised by the sight of Sonia Nevermind, haloed by the hallway light, and her smile shifted the world's axis a hair for his treacherous, contaminated heart.

"Good evening, Tanaka-san! I hope you're feeling better after your rest?"

 _Tanaka-san, if you want us to put any faith in your magical powers, why don't you show us some results first? Your little pets certainly don't amount to much._

_Don't worry,_ Junko had replied, _Gundam's stopped lying about spells. Haven't you, sweetie?_

At his silence, she quickly grew serious. "I see the report over there on the bedside table. You've been reading it?"

He nodded, and she continued. "Tanaka-san, I have to ask. Do you have any memories of the time we spent in the simulation?"

"I still have the false memories," he admitted, before the thought of lying occurred to him.

"They're not false!" she said. "It may have been a simulation, but you know we all thought it was real. To us, it _was_ real. Everything we did there was determined by our own free will, so it might as well have been in reality. It wasn't a _dream._ Everything we felt and thought in the simulation was as real as— as our experiences at school." 

"Oh? Then which of your faces is real, she-wolf of Novoselic?" 

Her face darkened immediately. "Tanaka-san, if different experiences showed a different side of you, don't you think the same could be true for me?" 

He looked away. He didn't believe that either of them could have turned out so differently, that she had somehow, at school, hidden away the kind and disarmingly straightforward girl who could chatter for hours about cults and serial killers and unsolved mysteries. If nothing else, the real Sonia Nevermind had never believed for a second in his magical powers or his special understanding of animals. But the false memories still held sway over his emotions, however he might resist, and he had difficulty bringing himself to say as much to her.

He'd shown weakness, and she pressed her advantage. "When I first came to the school — do you remember our first meeting? Our very first? You told me this story about a cat you were caring for, and I didn't know whether to believe you or not. I thought you were mocking me, so I was very curt with you, and—"

"Enough!" 

She stopped short, but she had no intention of ceding the field. "Listen," she said, her voice bright. "I didn't come here to discuss all that with you. I wanted to show you to the kitchen facilities, and invite you to join me and Hinata-san for dinner. But if you'd rather eat in here and continue reading, I can bring you a tray." She reached for the wall, fumbling a second before her fingers found the switch he'd never noticed. "I can't believe we didn't point out the light switch to you." 

"An oversight, indeed... I will eat here."

"All right. We'll show you the kitchen facilities tomorrow morning, then. I'll be back with your meal in a minute or two."

* * *

"Oh, what a cute little kitten!" 

He'd almost immediately blushed, and ducked his head into his scarf, but she was leaning over the desk, reaching for the cat. Which meant reaching close to _him._ "Beware," he blurted out in a moment of panic. 

Sonia's hand stopped, hovering near the kitten's head, and his own chest. "Eh?"

And now he had to explain himself. "The beast may look small and helpless now, but she is an avatar of Sekhmet, the lioness of the Egyptian desert, the Eye of Ra." 

"What?"

"Sekhmet, the lioness whose thirst for _blood_ could not be quenched until she was drunk on slaughter, who would only touch beer if she believed it to be the _lifeblood_ of her prey, the Lady of Pestilence— truly, the most terrifying of creatures, to be raised in loyalty to me, Tanaka Gundam, the Ascendant Ruler of Ice!" 

"I... see." He recognized the look on her face; doubtful, and perhaps a little amused. Possibly laughing at him, or possibly just wondering why he was so strange. "Can I pet her?"

"If you have the _courage,_ mortal!" It was the only way to react to that look, he'd decided before he entered Hope's Peak. No backpedaling, no ‘just kidding,' no doubts or hesitations. Not anymore. 

And so Sonia, not really looking at him anymore, had rubbed the kitten's ears for a few seconds, and then she'd given him a nervous smile and retreated to her desk. It was the last they'd speak for many months. If she ever gave him another thought as anything save the strange boy with the cute kitten, there was no sign of it. And, he hoped, there was no sign of the way he'd berated himself for stupidity back in his dorm room after classes, or the way he'd wonder, each time he saw her, how things might have gone differently had he said something else.


	2. Chapter 2

Sonia kept up her appearance of cheer until she closed Tanaka-san's room behind her. She'd known this might happen, and had attempted to brace herself for it. But at the same time, hope, for her, had always needed a target, and she'd pinned many of her hopes on Gundam Tanaka's awakening. 

It had been unrealistic, she could admit that now. Foolish. Even if he'd awakened exactly as he'd been in the simulation — and she'd known that was too much to ask — he'd have been in no shape to comfort her as she cried on his shoulder, or to absolve her of her guilt. 

It could hit her at any time; she'd be walking along the beach, or browsing in a market, and suddenly she'd remember the look of pain and realization when her mother took in the bear decorations in Junko's hair, the way her father took off his glasses and wiped them because there was a certain dignity a ruler must always project. She'd dip a sponge in soapy water to help clean the graffiti off a wall, and remember the paint splashed on the great fresco in St. Helena's cathedral, the rubble she'd picked through at the end of the day. 

She'd adopted an air of determined cheer from the first day they spent awake. The others needed someone to rely on, she thought, and maybe if she pretended to be cheerful it would eventually come true. Until then, she could vent her feelings to Tanaka-san as he slept. It had been enough, for a while, but she was beginning to feel the need for someone who'd at least show that they heard... and now this. 

But this was no time to let the cracks show, with Hinata just down the hall in what had once been a break room, so she wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders and began walking. Tanaka-san would need his meal, and she and Hinata-san needed to eat, and then she would go and feed the cats in the vacant lot. They wouldn't mind if she looked a little upset, as long as she served up their food.

* * *

The simulated island had been almost impossibly convincing, but there were certain details that had been lacking. Nothing ever collected dust, for instance, though their clothes could be torn or dirtied. The weather had always been perfect, sunny and cloudless and not too hot, while the real island boasted cloudy, muggy days, brief and sudden tropical showers, and stifling humidity. 

The real Jabberwock Island was not deserted in the least. The stores and hotels and clubs that they'd all ranged over in the simulation were present on the real island. Some had closed in the wake of the world's end. But others were still open, staffed and managed by people who lived on the island year round, and patronized both by the locals and by tourists who were now semi-permanent residents themselves, people who'd been lucky enough to be on a remote island when civilization began to collapse, and who'd opted to stay rather than risk returning to their homes. 

Animals had been one of the other things missing from the simulated island that could be found in abundance on the real island. They could hear frogs at night and tropical birds in the mornings, and the birds themselves were vibrantly visible in the trees or just flying overhead. The sight of them had almost become mundane, but not quite. Unfortunately, however Souda might think of her, Sonia was almost exactly the opposite of a Disney princess, and the birds would flee if she got too close. So would the cats, but some of them were growing more accustomed to her now. 

_Sekhmet,_ she thought, when the first one she saw was one of the little brown tabbies. They made up quite a clan, and she couldn't be sure which was which, but the markings and color were much the same as the little kitten Gundam had been hand-feeding the first time she'd approached him in their school days. Maybe calling that incident to his mind had been a bad idea, but she'd hoped to be able to explain it to him.

Intentions didn't really matter, though, did they? The way she felt about despair when she spread it didn't make it a pleasurable sensation for anyone else. If their first encounter had been an embarrassing incident for Tanaka-san, her explanation wouldn't alter that.

At sixteen, in the real Hope's Peak, she'd been anxious and a bit staggered by culture shock. She'd thought that she was prepared, but TV shows and international travel had not made her ready for the reality. She'd wanted to fit in, and when that failed, she'd wanted to avoid giving bullies like Saionji more ammunition. So she'd stifled her enthusiasm about her odd hobbies, and she'd shut down odd conversations. Which were, of course, the only kind of conversation anyone could ever have with Gundam Tanaka. In time she'd regained her footing, made friends — most of them dead now, of course — and had become the eccentric of her little circle, the strange and funny foreigner, but by that time it was too late for the two of them.

It had gone so much better on the island. In the simulation. Not always smoothly, but better than it had in high school. She needed to make sure he remembered that; that he remembered having the chance to be a hero, and that he remembered the girl she used to be, or could have been.

* * *

She'd come to his room in the middle of the night because she couldn't sleep. She hoped that if he was asleep and she knocked softly, he'd simply sleep through it, and that if he wasn't, they could talk; she almost lost her nerve, but before she could do more than half-turn away from the door, it opened. He probably thought she was bringing bad news, she realized, with a stab of remorse, but it was too late now to change her mind. "Tanaka-san," she began. "I'm sorry if I woke you..."

He said that she hadn't. He let her in, and courteously offered his bed as a seat, and then eventually he'd sat down on the other end of the bed and her heart had quickened a bit. They'd begun by talking about the mysteries of Jabberwock Island itself — the strange file detailing the destruction of Hope's Peak, the tourist brochure describing a different island than the one they could see, the ruin shaped like Hope's Peak Academy itself — but they weren't going to solve it sitting in a motel room in the middle of the night. 

When they'd exhausted what they knew and could imagine there (Sonia gently rejected his suggestion of time travel) they jumped from topic to topic, talking for hours about the mystery surrounding them, about the strange symptoms of Despair Fever, Sonia's possible magical powers — she liked the idea of reading minds — about Sonia's fondness for unsolved mysteries of all kinds, about an occult-inspired serial killer she'd heard about in Russia — clearly a misinformed pretender, Tanaka-san declared — and, finally, about a much smaller and more solvable mystery. 

"Tanaka-san, I've been wondering," she finally said. "Why is your hand always bandaged? Is it an injury?" She reached for his left hand, and he jerked it back abruptly. She sat back, mumbling a "sorry" — she sometimes forgot how differently Japanese culture treated touch. 

"It— you— take care," he stammered. "To touch me is to— to invite death."

So it was more of a Gundam Tanaka thing than a Japanese culture thing. "I... see. Why is that?" 

"My bandages?" He gave a low chuckle. "It is no great mystery. To devote oneself to the care of dangerous beasts is to risk one's own flesh and lifeblood. A trifling price, really, for the loyalty of such creatures." 

"All right," she said, patiently. "But why can't I touch you?"

_"Curiosity killed the cat,"_ he said, his English heavily accented but clear. 

She couldn't help smiling. _"But satisfaction brought it back,"_ she replied, and then she had to cover her mouth to keep herself from laughing out loud at the way his face face fell. She translated, swiftly, into Japanese, but he didn't look any less dismayed at that. 

"Because cats have seven lives, you see. At least that's what we say in Novoselic. In other places they say it's nine. Perhaps the cats in Novoselic are unlucky, or just more cautious! But the idea is that the cat thought whatever it did was worth the trouble. And the dying."

"So you would assert that to satisfy your curiosity holds no hazards?"

"Yes, exactly!" She beamed at him. Smiling brightly at someone she'd gently and tactfully annoyed was one of her very favorite things, even when it was a boy she liked.

"Very well, then, Madam Cat. If you insist. But it would not do to squander those lives. Since childhood, I have dined and drunk on poison, until now it flows in my blood and permeates my flesh. You are... _powerful_ for a mortal, true, but the touch of my skin would surely prove fatal."

"On poison? Are you all right?"

He laughed, that low chuckle that usually meant he was pretty proud of himself. "Mere poison is not enough to defeat me, Tanaka Gundam, the Ascendant Ruler of Ice! Even in my cradle I commanded forces beyond mortal comprehension! Your kindness is _welcome,_ but unnecessary. While there may have been times in the past that some new toxin sickened me, the cumulative effect has been not illness but immunity. A valuable trait when handling _serpents._ "

"I see. So it was gradual... So the remedy must be gradual as well."

His smile froze on his face. "I do not follow. A remedy?" 

"I can't touch you, or I'd be poisoned." He nodded, and she continued, "But if I touch you just a little every day, and expose myself to just a bit of the poison the same way you did, I'd become immune too, wouldn't I?"

"Ah... A peculiar strategy, Madam Cat. What benefit could you find in touching me?"

Sonia grinned. Maybe she wouldn't have to start asking about mating habits to get her point across after all. "Do I really need to spell it out, Tanaka-san?"

Apparently not. He pulled his scarf up to his nose, turtling inside it like she couldn't see how pink the rest of his face had gone. "That would — It would be impossible to test without... risking..." She gently shifted Jum-P aside, got up to her knees, and crawled toward him. He broke off entirely, with an expression on his face that nicely illustrated that American expression about a deer in headlights. 

She'd thought of kissing her fingers and touching his lips, but not only would she have to pull down his scarf to make it work, she was afraid she'd send him into a full panic by coming on quite that strong. Instead, she just tapped his nose lightly with a fingertip, and sat back, smiling. She thought she might be blushing a little herself. "You see? I'm quite all right," she said. "When do you think I could try again? A few hours from now?"

"That... might... be acceptable..." He sounded a little strangled. 

"I'm so glad! Maybe then I could take a look at your hand."

* * *

There was no clock in his room, but the light suggested late morning when Gundam awoke. He sat up in the bed, hand on his face, trying to remember, again, who and where he was. When his gathered thoughts reminded him that the question was far more complex than simply reaching for a morning's routine, he let himself fall back onto the bed.

It would be an easy solution, after all. No need to decide on a direction in life in the absence of Lady Junko's great mission. No need to ponder his own identity or the troubling questions raised by these artificial memories. 

But the gnawing in his stomach was a vivid reminder of the survival instinct. He sat up, again, and ran his hands through his disconcertingly full hair. He had changes to make in his appearance, that much was certain, but first he required sustenance.

 

The kitchen had been mercifully empty, and someone had thoughtfully provided hair gel in the bathroom. Hair gel, but no red contact lens. No matter, though. He would simply consider his facade a work in progress. He was not entirely pleased with the coiffure he created, but he blamed rusty motor skills for that. And then he had the entire day, and the rest of his life, to occupy.

To embrace despair was to give up thought of one's own future, to submit one's own will to Lady Junko's. He had a hard time thinking back to the time when he planned his own days beyond deciding on a type of mayhem to commit. There seemed to be little, at the moment, preventing him from continuing that pattern, but that appearance must be deceptive. The report had made clear that the simulation's goal had been to redirect the remnants of despair into hope, and he gathered the survivors had aligned themselves accordingly. 

And even if not, what was the point? What purpose would destruction serve, with Lady Junko defeated twice over? Suicide, though, was an equally meaningless option. If he'd found some reason to continue immediately after Lady Junko's death, his death now was pointless.

There was a real island out there, and something — had it been mentioned yesterday? — told him that it was not so barren of life as the simulation had been. 

He strode purposefully down the hallway, past the kitchen, and other rooms with their doors ajar (one empty, one containing a few office chairs, one the site of a large conference table and a half-dozen chairs) and flung open the door at the end of the corridor. The janitorial supplies that stared back at him looked dingy and unused, but at least the building seemed deserted at present. None had witnessed his blunder.

He retraced his steps, and had regained his purposeful stride by the time he stepped out into a lobby area. A few leather armchairs, an empty reception desk, plate glass windows. Eminently ordinary, but it led outside, and so he barely spared it a glance as he reached for the door's handle. 

The glass had been tinted, he found, as the light assaulted his eyes. He turned his face from the sky, eyes shaded with one arm, and he heard a faint noise that might have been suppressed laughter. He turned in that direction, squinting his abused eyes at whoever dared to mock him. 

The first impression he had was of the silhouette, the one defiant lock of hair pointing skyward, and the memory was drawn entirely from the simulation. _I'm not going to betray you._

"Hinata Hajime," he said. "Was your mystery ever solved?"

"Yeah." Hinata drew closer to him, and Gundam dropped his arm. Why so close? A mockery of Gundam's old claims of force fields and toxic touch? Then Gundam noticed the ruddy mark of a fairly recent scar along Hinata's hairline. "I was Kamukura Izuru."

Gundam fell back, no more than half a step, but it was enough. Kamukura had been more legend than real, to all of Lady Junko's disciples; even when he physically joined them, fleeing the resurgent forces of order, he'd been a shadowy and near-silent presence. 

Hinata stepped back as well. " _Was._ I used to be. I'm not anymore."

"Is that such an easy identity to shed?"

The dry chuckle Hinata gave had little trace of mirth in it. "I wish. But I'm not giving up."

"A role model for me, then?" Gundam chuckled as well. "I will take your example under advisement."

"Did you have any place in mind?" Hinata asked, after a moment's silence. "Or are you just going to wander to get your bearings?"

"The latter, if I may." Hinata shrugged, which Gundam chose to take as assent, and fell into step with him as Gundam selected his direction at random. Towards the bridge, if his memory served, but the road now led to a pier instead. The real islands were linked by ferries, Hinata began explaining, but he'd already known. Sonia had mentioned it... when? A dingy room in an American-style motel. The third island. They were trying to stay close, to keep in touch with the quarantined patients, and Sonia had knocked on his door late at night.

* * *

At the knock on the door, he'd fumbled for the bedside lamp, hastily pulled on a robe, and thrown his scarf around his neck. He thought it might have been dire news of one of their ailing classmates, or word that someone else had fallen ill. Instead, it was Sonia Nevermind, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold. "Tanaka-san," she'd said, her eyes troubled though she tried to smile. "I'm sorry if I woke you. I just needed to speak to someone." 

He'd let her in without a word, heart beating hard. He was alone with a girl in his room, in the middle of the night, and he wasn't sure he remembered how to talk anymore. He cleared his throat, and she clutched her robe closed at her throat, as if she was thinking along the same lines. 

"You... did not wake me," he admitted, finally. "I found sleep elusive, whatever the reason."

"So did I!" she said, almost eagerly. "I don't know if it's because we're in an unfamiliar place, or because I'm worried about this despair sickness and our sick classmates, or both." 

"Indeed," he said, and the silence that fell after that immediately felt awkward. He reached into a pocket of his robe, seeking a warm, sleeping body, but of course his four Dark Gods were slumbering peacefully in their habitat, after he'd moved their habitats from his cottage.

"Tanaka-san, do you remember that computer file we all read?" 

The one that described the destruction of Hope's Peak Academy. The only computer file any of them had had any access to recently. He nodded, and she continued, "There are other odd things, too — at the library, I found a tourist brochure that described Jabberwock Island, but it didn't fit the details we can see. And there's that strange modern ruin, too."

"Whatever sorcery is at play is too well-crafted for me to easily unravel," he said, and she smiled slightly.

"I was afraid of that. But I couldn't sleep, and I just kept thinking..."

"Tell me more about this forbidden document you found," he said. "A grimoire of some kind?"

"No, no, just a little leaflet!" An informational handout for tourists, with a strange description, at odds with the evidence of their own senses. It told him nothing, of course, and the repetition revealed no new details to her, but the conclusion she and Hinata Hajime had reached, of outdated publications, felt ill-fitting to both of them. 

The discussion, though, energized them both. He turned on a second lamp and straightened the covers on his bed to provide her a comfortable seat, and when the Dark Gods began to stir, he retrieved them from their habitat. Sonia arranged herself on the foot of the bed, and Gundam, feeling distinctly bold and reckless and almost drunk on it, seated himself at the head, casting the pillows aside. The Dark Gods ranged over the covers between them, taking sunflower seeds and raisins from Sonia's hands. "I've been saving treats for them," she admitted, perhaps sheepishly, and he hid his smile in his scarf even though his face felt aglow. 

They sat up talking for hours, moving on from the oddities of Jabberwock Island to the general strangeness of this "field trip," the question of Monomi's loyalties, Monobear's goals, and the impossible symptoms of Despair Fever. "It's such a frightening illness," Sonia said. "The way it changes your behavior... I wonder if they realize they're acting oddly?"

"Have no fear, little bird," he said. "Should any of the infected approach this place, I will lay down my life to keep them at bay." He immediately regretted every syllable, but if she noticed him retreating into his scarf like a turtle into its shell, she gave no sign. 

"I hope you don't need to. Surely none of them would try to infect us, would they? Komaeda was lying, but not trying to harm anyone."

"Let us hope so," he said. Maybe she'd ignore the relief in his voice as she had his reckless display of devotion and his ill-chosen nickname. She was no sparrow. A swan she might be, perhaps, a Birman cat, a majestic silvery she-wolf, but nothing small or timid. "Look," he said, casting about for a change of subject, "Jum-P is falling asleep on you. He must sense some power in you, to find you worthy."

"Oh, he is!" Her voice came out high and excited, and she clapped her hand to her mouth, then continued, in a lower voice, "That's hella awesome! What kind of power? I do not feel at all different."

* * *

The simulation's version of Sonia Nevermind had been puzzlingly unwilling to exploit her own powers — whether in general, or over him — in any but the most playful of ways, but the memory of that night was more than proof enough of their strength. He was relieved when Hinata Hajime drew his attention to the island they were approaching, and away from his own thoughts.

The ferry ride only deposited Gundam and Hinata on a central island, dominated by a gleaming tower of glass and metal; the flora and fauna bore all the signs of human hands and human landscaping efforts. If he sought only squirrels and rabbits, this destination would suit him, but otherwise, he had been misled. "This would-be Charon scorns all islands but the center?" Gundam asked.

"It's kind of nice to have you still acting like this, I guess," Hinata said. "The ferries don't do island-to-island service anymore. I was telling you that earlier. There's no demand. Back when this was a resort, I think they did." 

"Ahh."

"So are you more interested in finding some animals, or in buying new clothes?" Hinata asked, and Gundam lifted one hand in a warding gesture before he could stop himself. "C'mon, it's what everyone wants after they wake up — either they make a beeline for something connected to their talent, or they want to get out of pajamas and into real clothes." 

"Others have awakened, then." Hinata had begun to walk, and Gundam, overcoming a slight reluctance, followed his lead. His mysterious phantom "classmate" had at least identified Gundam's two most powerful desires at the moment correctly. 

"Yeah. Hanamura, Saionji, and... Togami. As far as we can tell, there's no pattern to who wakes up when." 

The first killer, the fourth victim, and the first victim. And now himself, the fourth killer. Even when despair had been removed, even when he had been acting _against_ despair, he had taken a life. What of Nidai Nekomaru, in this reality? He would not awaken as a robot. He had not yet awakened, it seemed, and Gundam could not make amends to him until that day. "Indeed. Nor am I the first killer to awaken."

"Nope. But, uh, maybe _don't_ say that kind of thing on the ferry. We don't really want people to know how weird our story is." 

They had started out, Gundam learned as they made their way to the next pier, on the second island, also known as Borogrove. The first island, site of a public beach, the lodgings for the rest of the students, and the shopping district, was their destination. "They call it Jubjub," Hinata explained. "So if you ask directions to the first island, nobody's going to know what you're talking about." 

"A wise decision, to keep the latest arrival quarantined," he observed neutrally. 

"It turned out to be the only way... Kind of a long story."

"Did Hanamura's tales of devouring his own kin prove too disturbing?" Gundam had never been certain whether he believed those stories. Hanamura had been a liar and social climber in ordinary life. It seemed more than possible that he had carried those tendencies with him into despair, and had constructed the most elaborate and horrifying tale to enhance his credentials, and, if he could, impress Lady Junko.

"You say that like somehow they shouldn't be." Was that fear in Hinata's eyes? Disgust? Gundam was surprised that he didn't relish the thought.

"I never fully believed their veracity." 

"Sorry I'm not as jaded about that. I know the rest of you heard those before, but it was new to me, and it sure sounded real. He went vegetarian after he woke up!" 

They had been disturbing to one of the group, at least. "On that subject, Hinata Hajime. I understand your isolation, but had you no reports from Lady Junko, no interest in the rest of the forces?"

Hinata shook his head briskly, as if to dislodge a thought. "No," he said. "I'd rather not talk about this any more. The first island — Jubjub — it doesn't have anything quite like the market in the simulation, but you should be able to find almost anything if you look long enough."

Perhaps he could have pursued the subject, in the name of despair, but Gundam was well acquainted with wanting to leave some topics to their rest. As they proceeded to the pier, boarded the ferry, and crossed the waters, they exchanged only the most trivial of remarks, on the weather, the state of the waves, the schedule of the ferry. Gundam occupied himself instead with observation of his surroundings. This ferry, like the first, was smaller than he'd expected, and showed the signs of age and wear. Seabirds wheeled overhead. Gulls, most likely. Truly, the simulation had been barren of life, a poor replica, like a cardboard set for a play. 

A small island; he doubted he would find any large predators. But tropical birds, perhaps. Monkeys, possibly. Something stranger and more exotic? He remembered his long-ago dream of visiting Australia, and he remembered, unexpectedly, Sonia's description of something called a makango. She had only referred to it in the vaguest terms, and he'd been uncertain it was even an animal—

"Hinata Hajime," he asked, abruptly. 

"Yeah? What's up?"

"The report I was given suggested we the deceased should lose our memories of the simulation."

"Yeah, that was what we thought would happen. We weren't even sure when we did the shutdown if _we'd_ keep our memories. That was what made it a really hard decision." After a moment's pause, he added, "Part of it." 

"Yet you remember."

"Somehow, yeah. There are some holes, but nothing like— nowhere near as bad as we feared. Hell, it might be completely normal. Who remembers every single thing that happens?"

"And _I_ remember. Why?"

"We don't know." The boat was slowing, approaching its destination, and as other passengers came out to join them on the deck, Hinata lowered his voice. It seemed an unnecessary precaution — none of the other passengers appeared Japanese. "None of us are Super High School-Level Neuroscientists, but the best we could come up with is just that they were wrong. The Future Foundation, I mean. They thought all the memories would download all at once at the end of the simulation, but our brains were really receiving them as they happened." 

The explanation, as he'd suspected, was of no help. It would neither rid him of these memories nor decree them false and invalid. And with that surprising insight of his, Hinata continued, "Sorry, Tanaka. If we didn't believe what happened on the— in the simulation counted, I don't think any of us could keep going. If you don't want to believe in those memories, you're gonna be on your own."


	3. Chapter 3

They had been in that infernal hellscape of strawberries and pink, wandering through guest rooms, when the back of Sonia's hand brushed his. He had a different objection to Sonia's touch than he'd ever had to anyone else's: the slightest contact was electric. Further, she was extremely determined to develop her immunity to his touch as soon as possible, and so she touched him frequently. It was, in some ways, the very best sort of problem to have, but it was tremendously distracting, and his Dark Gods were growing restive.

"I wonder..." she'd murmured, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. 

"You wonder?" he echoed, when his consciousness had returned from its focus on the point of their fleeting contact.

"If anyone could handle a golden makango, it would be you." 

The statement was puzzling, the unfamiliar word no doubt relating to something from Novoselic. When he turned his eyes on her in question, for once _she_ was the one to blush and look away. "A makango?" he repeated.

"A... golden makango," she clarified. "It is... In a traditional Novoselic betrothal, two lovers must raise a makango together before they can be wed, and for a member of the royal family, it must be a golden makango." She was having a hard time making eye contact with him, which was truly unusual for her. Of course, at her mention of marriage, Gundam himself had flushed and looked away, joy and panic and intense confusion colliding. Had he been forced to make such a decision, by some power beyond his command, he would have formed with her any pact or covenant on earth or in all the hells. But he'd hoped they might master linking their hands for at least a few seconds before he needed to contemplate the binding of her vibrant soul to his dark destiny.

"I don't mean to rush things!" she added, hastily. "The thought just occurred to me, that's all."

"Ah... yes... I would do my best," he mumbled. "A makango, is it...?"

"I shouldn't have brought up something so intimate," she said. "Please forgive me. Just put it out of your mind!" 

It was always difficult to disobey her when she took such a tone — he strongly suspected that any magical or psychic powers she might possess were concentrated in her voice — but it was equally impossible to put out of his mind either the prospect of consummating some dark and secret union, or the name of a mysterious item that might be an unfamiliar species of animal. 

"Is it a beast of some kind?" he finally asked, after some five minutes or more of utter and awkward silence.

"Tanaka-san! Not where the others might hear!" she protested. 

Regrettably for his own curiosity, he did succeed later in putting the thought from his mind, for imprisonment and impending starvation were most effective sources of distraction, and never raised the subject again in more private circumstances.

* * *

It seemed foolish and trivial, but the purchase of a long muffler and a coat — there was little call for either on a tropical island, but fortune favored him, and he was able to find acceptable specimens of each in neglected corners of one shop — and the lengthy process of selecting a pair of boots helped Gundam to feel significantly more like himself. 

"And then we can go find some animals and they can get you smelling like them," Hinata suggested. Gundam frowned at him, and Hinata raised his hands in a calming gesture. "I just meant like the way cats rub up against you," he said. "I wasn't saying you smelled like hamsters or anything."

"Hmm." Gundam could no longer remember if scents had been present in the simulation, but the statement felt off — like a misstatement in a trial. "Hinata Hajime," he said. "If my false memories serve me, you were never master of any creature above a mere crustacean. How came you to have knowledge of the behavior of domestic felines?"

"Heh. Those weren't false memories, Tanaka. But it's kind of a long story."

* * *

The truth was, Sonia had begun to concern herself with the stray cats in part because of Gundam Tanaka. She'd remembered his hatred of any cruelty, his belief that humans had a responsibility to care for domesticated animals, and she noticed how thin the stray cats looked when she caught a glimpse of one of them, and she cut her time in the pod room short to go looking for cat food. 

The supply situation on the island was less dire than it had once looked. Shortly after they'd awakened, Sonia had been forced to work out a rationing schedule for their stored goods to make them last as long as possible, despite Owari's loud protests. Jabberwock was largely dependent on imports, and while it was now receiving occasional shipments, they weren't as regular or as abundant as everyone would have liked, and pet food was not a priority. She couldn't be certain if it wasn't being manufactured, or just wasn't being imported. 

Sonia had started out by trading a gold necklace — people still seemed to think there was some intrinsic value to precious metals, or perhaps it was a sign of hope for the restoration of order — for a half dozen of the dusty and forgotten bags of expired cat food from a store's back room, which had lasted her so far. She hoped that when she reached the end of her stock, there would be more to buy. 

The vacant lot sat next to the Future Foundation building, a relic of some abandoned plans for expansion. Although mostly host to tall weeds that made her bare legs itch, there were also signs of how long the lot had been abandoned and neglected; a rusting shopping cart, a wheelbarrow, a discarded and weathered lawn chair. Sonia had thought to use it as a seat at first, but the plastic was on the verge of disintegration. 

The cats she fed were a mixture; some were pets either abandoned or allowed to run wild, and others were feral and deeply suspicious of humans. Some personalities and distinguishing markings had emerged. There was the hefty, fluffy cat, mostly white with a gray tail and spots on his ears, who clearly considered himself quite the important personage. She'd instantly nicknamed him Togami, after the one she'd known in the simulation, and was still waiting for a thin tuxedo cat of similar personality to appear. There were a number of brown and black tabbies she had to distinguish by their markings: one long white stocking, white feet, white bib, no white at all, and so on. There was the one ginger cat, who'd had a family at least once, if not anymore, since they'd seen to having him neutered; sometimes he'd consent to be petted. 

And then there was her favorite, a small, fluffy black cat with golden eyes who was clearly heavily pregnant. If "the mother," as Sonia thought of her, missed a feeding, Sonia would fret that she'd been hurt, or killed, or just that she'd given birth and now had a litter of kittens for Sonia to worry over. She was surprisingly friendly; if Sonia kept still and stayed patient, the cat would approach her, sniff her hands, and then permit her ears to be rubbed, and then become so enraptured with having her ears rubbed that she'd fling herself to the ground, sometimes roll around a bit, and then resume shoving her head into Sonia's hand. 

Sonia might have started feeding the cats in honor of Tanaka-san's care for all animals, but now in a way they were hers. She worried for them, studied them, and she hoped she was helping them. She couldn't undo everything she'd done to her family, her people, and her country, but she could do some good things, small things, and see the results.

* * *

Felines, if Hinata Hajime spoke truth; an entire colony, in residence not far from his current dwelling. And, at present, they were under the protection of Sonia Nevermind. 

What to make of this information? Why would she pursue this course? 

The report that his welcoming committee had provided, should he accept its accuracy, removed the five of them from suspicion. None of them had engineered the simulation; his own memories, less confused than they had been immediately upon his awakening, helped to confirm that. He remembered the Future Foundation's offer, and their own reluctant acceptance: First Kamukura Izuru, and then, one by one, the rest of them. Kamukura had a plan, it transpired, an AI program he had somehow loaded into the simulation, and yet he and the rest had defied it, and their own past selves. 

And somehow, it had succeeded despite its failure. He was not entirely restored to the boy he had been, the deluded child who saw his pets as monsters and demons under his command, who believed that his spells had worked every time something he wished came to pass, who saw the workings of a grim destiny in a lonely childhood; but something of that boy lingered, when Gundam had believed all traces of his former self had been stripped away and obliterated by Enoshima Junko. It was obvious even to those around him. Hinata Hajime had already remarked on the familiarity of his speech patterns.

And because that boy had returned from the dead, Gundam looked on his own past actions with loathing. 

At the time of Lady Junko's defeat, he'd been caring for several animals he'd liberated from a zoo that had been abandoned by its keepers. He'd freed many of the animals to wander the ruins of the city, and kept only a few, but his decisions had been made based on practical considerations: which beasts they could easily feed, which would be useful for Super High School Level Despair. He'd set the elephants and giraffes to roam, because acquiring food for them would be difficult, but kept the tigers and the one surviving lioness because they could feed on the people they killed. 

So they traveled with him, and after Junko's defeat, with the other surviving remnants of Despair, while the elephants were left to starve. 

He'd lost one of the tigers to a well-armed remnant of the police force, but the others were still alive and healthy when Lady Junko fell, and he knew no one else could care for them. To turn them loose on the population would be a suitably terrifying farewell gesture, but even if he had thoughts of taking his own life, his beasts had never asked to have their lives cut short. 

And yet that had been their fate, as the remaining forces of order and society had tracked them, until finally his last tiger, Shere Khan, had been felled by an old farmer with a hunting rifle, a mere two days before the Future Foundation caught up with them. 

He'd been a poor master to all his minions, over the years. He'd done his best, as a youth, to ensure his four dark gods and all their less-powerful relations, and all the other creatures under his care, were comfortable, healthy, well-fed and entertained, but it was impossible to know if their small, brief lives were happy. And the world was so full of mistreated animals of all kinds, abused, unwanted, abandoned to fend for themselves. If humans couldn't even be counted on to care for helpless creatures that humans themselves had bred to be helpless and cute and appealing, what were they worth? 

That had been the specific flavor of despair he had tasted. The human world had held nothing for him after his mother's death, when he'd been in middle school. The distant cousins who'd taken him in had been kind in a dutiful way, uncomfortable with the strange, unwanted child in their midst. Animals had been his only friends and companions, yet so many of them suffered and died, and he could do nothing to help. 

Yet he'd been willing to treat his beasts as weapons and tools in the service of despair, sending them to fight and die for a cause they couldn't understand. He was as bad as any of the mortals he'd disdained.

People. Any of the people he'd disdained. He was no better than they were, just as mortal and just as ordinary. 

Ordinary indeed. The birds of the real Jabberwock Island would not come near him, to his shame, but not his surprise. He didn't deserve any animal's trust any longer. "Let us return," he finally suggested to Hinata. "I find I am weary."

"I probably should have suggested it sooner. You don't want to push yourself too hard when you just woke up." It was a relief that Hinata found nothing odd in the request, but the weariness went deeper than the physical. Was it the old tugging of despair, or did he simply feel sick at heart?

* * *

From a far corner of the lot, Sonia watched them return, and then she left, cutting across empty parking lots — fuel was a precious commodity now, reserved for the ferries, so no one drove — to get to the private beach. Owari Akane, jogging in sports bra and shorts, waved at her and changed course. Sonia, itchy from the weeds and eager to step into the water, returned the greeting and stripped off her thigh-highs as she waited for the other woman to reach her. 

"Hey, Sonia. How are things going with your boy?" Owari continued jogging in place; Sonia would never understand her boundless reserves of energy. 

"Oh, I thought you might have heard. He remembers hating me."

"Aw. Want me to thump him for you?" 

"I am not sure that would help..." she said, but she was smiling all the same. Owari's cheerfully straightforward approach to life was impossible to resist, and it was the whole reason Sonia had headed this way. 

Well, most of the reason. Sonia indicated the sea with her head, and Owari began moving that way, jogging backwards. "It might make _you_ feel better, right? I mean, if I was you, I'd want to smack him."

Sonia just smiled. "How are things on the first island?"

"Oh, the usual. Saionji's still a little psychopath, even if she's not that little anymore. Acting all high and mighty about never killing anybody she wasn't related to. Seems kind of backwards to me." 

_You brainwashed our daughter!_ Sonia tried to focus her hearing on the waves instead of her own mind. "To me as well. But we all have to find our own ways to live with ourselves."

"Yeah, well, hers is a pain in the ass. Shortcake's keepin' his nose clean, and Junior's making him feel wanted, so I'm living pretty high on the hog too. You should drop by for dinner, it's amazing! He still won't cook red meat, but what can you do, right? Chicken's supposed to be better for building muscle anyway."

"Perhaps another time." _Shortcake_ was Hanamura-san, the cook. _Junior_ was the young man Sonia had known as Byakuya Togami; she wasn't sure if Owari truly thought he was the son of the real Togami, or if the name was just her way of assigning him an identity. With Owari, it could sometimes be hard to tell. 

The tide was coming in to meet them, and Sonia took a few steps forward, wading in up to her knees. "Owari-san, did you know Nidai-san in your school days?"

"Nah, the old man was a couple years behind me. Kuzuryuu's class. Don't guess you knew him." 

"Not until after we all left school, no." Of course, she knew the answer to her next question — what would you do if he woke up and had no memory of you? Owari would either start over from nothing, or pummel him until he remembered her. Not that the two approaches would be terribly different in execution. If Ibuki's excited account had been accurate, pummeling had been the beginning of their friendship in the first place.

"Hey. C'mon, perk up. He's awake and he's not totally off his rocker like Shortcake was at first, right? He'll come around. Worst comes to worse, you can tell him you went into heat or something, right?"

"Owari-san!" Sonia protested, laughing. Which had been the real point, she knew. "I should get back to the facility. I'd like to hear what Hinata-san has to report, and if Tanaka-san is willing to join us for a meal, that's all the more reason."

"Sure thing," Owari said. When Sonia reached the pathway again and stopped to brush sand off her feet, she saw, in the fading light, that Owari had resumed jogging.

 

Tanaka-san still preferred to eat in his room. Hinata-san had little to report about their excursion, save that the two of them had discussed the cat colony. And so Sonia, pleading weariness, retired early to the second-floor office that had been refitted into a bedroom for the caretakers, as they thought of themselves. The minders. The guards. 

She had no interest in reading anymore. She laid on her bed, one arm over her eyes, and stared at the ceiling and her wrist.

* * *

At Junko's request, Sonia had avoided all communication with her family before departing from Japan. The four of them — Sonia, Junko, and a pair of enforcers named Akane Owari and Nekomaru Nidai — claimed one of the Togami Conglomerate corporate jets for the flight. The more rotund of the two Byakuya Togamis was a valuable ally. And, Sonia intended to prove, so was she. No matter what Tanaka-san might claim, she was no mere figurehead. 

Upon landing, Sonia took a moment to comb her hair, to collect herself, and to enter what everyone — her late friends from school and her allies in Super High School Level Despair alike — called "Princess Mode." She straightened her collar, took one last look at herself in the mirror, and then led the way off the plane.

Her parents were not there to meet her, of course, but she recognized some of the officers and staff, and the driver now had been a young cadet when she left. She played the part, greeting people by name, smiling graciously, shaking hands, and making no comment about the unique entourage that had followed her home from Japan. Nor would any of the well-bred royal staff and retinue. 

No disapproving glares would have stopped Junko, of course, but still no one said a word when she helped herself to bottled water, kicked back in the limousine, and began a one-sided, erratic, and frequently very foul-mouthed conversation in Japanese with the driver, who was limited to smiling, nodding, and attempting to pretend none of this was happening, because he didn't dare to ask the princess to translate. Sonia almost pitied him.

They'd dine at six, Sonia reminded them, and that was when they'd start.

 

Both Sonia's parents spoke Japanese, though her mother was less fluent; upon entering the room where they were to dine, they greeted their daughter's odd friends graciously, and Sonia felt a surge of love and pride in them. She was going to be in such despair when they died, and they'd feel such beautiful despair as well, betrayed by their beloved daughter just when they'd thought she, and they, were safe. 

"Don't worry," Sonia's mother said kindly to the mountainous Nidai. "You'll be safe here. Novoselic has not experienced any of this despair chaos."

"You sure about that?" Junko asked. Sonia saw her mother look over at the young woman who'd been hanging back. And she saw the moment her mother noticed the bear decorations, saw the look of realization, and then anguish, and she saw her mother close her eyes briefly. The room grew still, and Sonia looked to her father; he released Owari's hand, looking questioningly at his wife, and then around the room. His eyes fell on Junko as well, and he gave a small, disbelieving chuckle. 

"Not in the best of taste," he murmured, in English, then, louder, and in Japanese, he added, "If that is a joke..." 

Junko curled her hands under her chin like paws, putting on her cutest look, to say, "Aww, but doncha think bears are just the cutest things? They're my favorites!" His eyebrows contracted in a frown, and Sonia saw that her mother was looking at him, her expression hopeful. By the time Sonia glanced back to Junko, she'd whipped out a pair of glasses. "Our analysis has shown that despair has not spread as rapidly through Europe as we'd like, and so Novoselic has been nominated for the honor of becoming despair's first foothold in the West." 

Owari and Nidai had moved in, gradually, so slowly Sonia herself hadn't noticed, until now they were flanking her father. Sonia watched his expression change as realized; not quite despair, but his hope was dimming, definitely. She watched him take off his glasses, remove a cloth from his pocket, and slowly wipe them clean. "Tell me what you did to my daughter," he said.

"Papa, I can tell you! It's beautiful — despair is beautiful. I just want to share it all with you and Mama." 

 

It would be weeks before they could experience the ultimate despair, though. Junko had her heart set on trying out the shark tank execution on one of them, but the sharks and their tank were in Japan, and Souda and Tanaka were making a stink about moving them. Souda didn't want to move the motorcycle death trap, either, and so finally they had to settle for the quiz show set and the witch-burning executions. "Don't worry," Sonia said, rubbing Junko's shoulders. "We'll find test subjects for the others in Japan." 

"But we're killing royalty here," Junko grumbled, playing with her own crown. "They need to go out with a bang. I want the whole country in despair by the time they both kick it." 

"Maybe we should use the batting cage execution, then. It's portable, isn't it?"

"Do people here even play baseball?" Junko sounded distinctly gloomy. "It wouldn't mean anything, would it?"

"Not very well, but leaving the body on display should induce all kinds of despair!" 

"Sonia, babe, you're the best!" Junko kissed her on the mouth and hopped up, humming to herself. "Where's my phone? I gotta call Souda!" 

 

King Teodor of Novoselic was the first of the public executions. 

The machinery was not the only thing Junko had flown in; armed Monobear-masked forces were also being imported, and while they weren't exactly disciplined troops, they were so well-known by now that just seeing them in person led to panic and rioting by Novoselic civilians. Junko roped in a few to help guard the king and queen from any attempted rescue, but they were mostly there to spread chaos. 

Just when the riots began to calm, Junko set her plan into motion. The palace staff, terrified of Junko and still in awe of Sonia, scheduled a speech and alerted the press. When the time came, the arrangements were made inside the palace; the king traditionally stood on a particular balcony to address the people, and Sonia and her mother stood behind him. Sonia's task was ensuring her mother didn't let any of the viewers see the handcuffs. 

Just when Teodor Nevermind opened his mouth to speak, the collar clamped around his neck, and he was dragged backward. Sonia turned to watch him being dragged down the hallway, her heart thundering so hard she could barely hear her mother's panicked demands as to what was going on. 

The cameras would be following him, Sonia trusted, but testing that was part of the point of this. She and her mother followed, to witness it firsthand. 

The camera caught it all, and lingered on the sight for the sake of the despairing populace: on the late king's bloodied corpse still bound to the post, torso caved in by the battering it had sustained, his shattered glasses still hanging over the smashed and half-destroyed remains of the most recognizable face in the kingdom, and on the grieving family. Queen Martina was still as beautiful and stylish as she'd been the day of her wedding, and her face was a mask of silent, dry-eyed grief, while tears streamed down Princess Sonia's face.

* * *

It hadn't been an act. Sonia had genuinely grieved for her father, and had experienced real nightmares from the horror of the way he died, despite suggesting it herself. It had been the truest, deepest despair of her life; her beloved father, betrayed and killed brutally and painfully, and it was all her fault. It was just as real and unbearable a week later, when her mother was burned at the stake (the fire truck had missed her, to Junko's rage and Sonia's transporting agony.) Despair might leave some people numb and dead, but Sonia had experienced every emotion with almost greater intensity when she'd surrendered everything to Junko.

Almost every emotion. The guilt was stronger now. She'd felt it even then, but she'd believed it had all been for a higher cause. Now, it was nothing but pain, inescapable and senseless.

She'd made a mistake again, she thought. She shouldn't have kept all of this to herself for so long, confiding only in people who couldn't respond or even hear. She could have confided in Kuzuryuu; the two of them had forged a kind of friendship thanks to his habit of coming to visit Pekoyama, and she knew he'd somehow mustered the patience to get Owari to actually think, and talk, about her own emotions. Or Hinata. Kuzuryuu sometimes called him the Super High School Level Therapist. 

It probably wasn't too late for her. But at two in the morning when guilt kept one awake, hope was as far away as it could ever be and despair so close you could feel its breath on your cheek.


	4. Chapter 4

The knocking woke Gundam from deep sleep. He'd been dreaming of Monobear and a parrot his aunt had owned, and spaceships, and he couldn't remember where he was when he opened his eyes. But he could locate the door by the sound of the knocking, and so he scrambled from his bed and stumbled in that direction.

He was halfway there when he remembered that the knocking would, naturally, mean that another person awaited on the other side of said door, and that he slept in the buff. The light blanket from his bed, wrapped around himself like a kilt, resolved that. It was with a sense of having averted disaster that he opened the door.

And encountered Sonia Nevermind, her arms wrapped around herself as though she were cold, her eyes troubled and no trace of a smile on her face. He came unmoored in time, suddenly and violently, and of its own volition his hand reached for her shoulder.

"Tanaka-san, I'm sorry I—" She'd begun speaking before he reached for her, but she cut herself off just before he touched her. Through the cloth of her nightdress, he could feel the warmth of her skin, the fine bones of her shoulder, and the way she was trembling. He saw her throat move as she swallowed, and then she continued, her voice sounding more calm, "I'm sorry I woke you."

"No matter," he said. "What troubles you?"

"It's... hard to explain. I shouldn't have come to bother you," she said. But she reached up to cover the hand on her shoulder with her own. "You have enough on your mind."

Reality was creeping back, yet he couldn't bring himself to withdraw his hand. And he couldn't muster the words for all his questions: _Was I so different at school, that you couldn't be near me there? In this game world, was it my powers that interested you so much, or did you pretend to respect them for my sake? Why me? What could you see in me?_

"I think we all do," he finally said. It seemed to be the right thing to say, because she smiled, tearfully, and squeezed his hand.

"I should try to sleep," she said. "I'm sorry I disturbed you. Good night, Tanaka-san."

By rights, the mysterious nocturnal visit should have kept him awake, thoughts turning over in his mind, but sleep reclaimed him so swiftly that he awoke the next morning still wearing his blanket kilt.

The incident seemed inexplicable in daylight, extracted from a dream, but his odd sleep garb spoke to the reality of it. When he dressed and left his room, he found Sonia in the pseudo-kitchen, and though she looked tired, she smiled shyly at him.

If she had no explanation she could utter in the darkest hours of the night, he doubted she would find it easier to speak in broad daylight, but someone had to say something, and so he made himself speak. "Sonia." And he made himself continue speaking even with her eyes on him. "If I could be of some assistance with this feline colony under your protection... it would please me to aid you."

"Oh, Tanaka-san, that would be wonderful!" The light had come back on; the smile was no longer shy. Good. "There's one in particular that I'm worried about — have you ever helped a cat give birth?"

* * *

Sonia wasn't quite certain how her late-night pestering of Tanaka-san had changed his view of her, or why, but over the days that followed, it was clear something had shifted. He was still a bit gloomy and reserved, and he still didn't talk about his dark powers or his visits to hell, but he voluntarily interacted with her and with Hinata. He helped her to feed the cats, and joined her in standing by quietly as they came to eat. He spoke, usually just about the cats or other things before their eyes, but he spoke to her.

And when the pregnant cat came to say hello to her, he stood back while she crouched down to pet her little friend. "I see now the reason for your query," he said.

"It's bound to happen any day now! Is there anything we should do?"

"If you would have these kittens grow up as companions and not wild beasts, you had best bring their mother indoors. Lady Bastet here seems amenable, at least to human affection. But kittens must be handled by humans young lest they grow up believing us the enemy."

Sonia gently rubbed the cat's distended belly. "Bastet, hmm..." she said softly. "Tanaka-san, I think that may be the first time I've heard you call yourself a human."

She kept her eyes on the cat for as long as she could stand it, but finally she risked a glance at him. He had his arms folded, and was looking off in the distance. "I have finally accepted that wishing cannot make things so," he said.

"It's interesting that you see it that way. To me... humans are the standard I fell short of."

"Despite your enthusiasm for serial killers and other such madnesses?"

"Other... you mean like cults? I'd almost forgotten how interesting I used to find those. And then I got sucked into one myself, even though I knew all the signs."

"One small gap in one's armor..." He fell silent. "Sonia. In that simulated world... did you believe me when I spoke of dark powers and sorcery? Were you merely humoring my delusions?"

She stood up and turned to face him. Lady Bastet, at her feet, mewed a protest, but this was too important to receive only part of her attention. She reached out, tentatively, to touch his face, half-expecting him to pull away, but he let her turn his face towards her.

"Tanaka-san. I never thought of you as a liar or delusional. Everything you said always had a grain of truth in it — everything I knew or could check, that is — so I trusted you." His large, intense eyes flicked away from hers, just for a moment, but when he looked back, she continued. "The way you saw the world was more interesting than the way the world really is, most of the time. If I say that I played along, would that bother you? I would have..." And now she was tearing up, but his eyes were shining a bit, too— "I would have liked to join you at an amusement park in hell."

"I think we experienced something very close soon afterwards," he said, and smiled a little when she giggled. "And as for real amusement parks — the laments of damned souls cannot be that much louder than the whining of tired children."

"I'm sure you're right." He covered her hand with his, and then, awkwardly, tried to lace his fingers through hers; she ended up taking his hand in both of hers. "Maybe someday we'll be able to test that." Lady Bastet was winding between her legs, and probably Tanaka-san's as well, because he looked down. "Did you... I'm not sure if you ever understood why I was so different at school."

"Breed the same pair of hamsters twice, and all the young may come out different," he said. "Chance and different circumstances..."

"We were so much more free on the island, meeting each other in different ways— Do you think it would be all right for me to pick up Bastet?"

"If you would allow me..."

"Certainly," she said, and squeezed his hand before she let it go. She stepped back to watch him, but being able to speak to him like this, to touch him, was such a beautiful surprise it was hard not to spill all the things she'd stored up to say to him at once. "I've been meaning to tell you — we asked our Future Foundation contacts about bringing hamsters to the island, but they vetoed it. They said it was unnecessary."

"If there is contact with the outside world..." he fell quiet as the cat sniffed his outstretched hand, and then moved in for him to rub her ears. "I might ask to contact some of my disciples. If some of the breeding lines I established are still in existence, and I could acquire hamsters from those lines..."

"Oh! Descendants of your Four Dark Gods? Here on the island for real? That's hella exciting!" She could see his eyes crinkle in a smile, though he was still focused on the cat. She fell silent, watching him at work. He clucked softly to her, rubbing the cat's ears, scratching her back, and then he reached out and scooped her up, hind legs in his left hand, his right supporting her forelegs. She seemed unfazed by this new outlook on the world, turning her head and seeming, Sonia thought, to be sniffing the air.

"Success!" he said, triumphant. "Let us prepare a royal throne for her majesty in the office lobby. Or if another, quieter room might be found—"

"Oh yes, one of the conference rooms would be perfect. I'll open the doors for you!"

* * *

The preparations for the divine birthing room took up much of the morning. Food, water, bedding, and a pan of sand for the royal litter box, all had to be arranged to Tanaka-san's exacting specifications, and he was dissatisfied with the cat food on hand, as well.

Sonia finally dispatched him with Hinata to search for something more fitting for the expectant mother, and settled by the cat bed, scratching a purring Bastet's ears. Someone, clearly, had missed being a pet. Sonia wondered what had become of Bastet's owner — a victim of the limited despair battles that had occurred here? Someone who'd decided caring for a cat was more trouble than expected? Or just an animal lover whose pet had wandered off?

Energized and supplied with an entire colony of cats needing his care, Tanaka-san was transformed. Sonia had been a bit bemused at first, but in the simulation, he'd always been one of the most dedicated to moving forward. He had a direction, now, and animals who needed him. She'd had no idea it would work so well.

He returned that afternoon, ready to treat Bastet for fleas and discuss his plans for the rest of the colony. "I have found a willing accomplice," he declared, "a veterinarian who will spay or neuter the strays for us at a reduced rate! The hand of the _divine_ guided me to that strip mall!"

"I'm so glad!" About both the good news and the way he was already seeing divine intervention in his day-to-day tasks. When they moved him into one of the bungalows and gave him a spot in the dishwashing rotation, she hoped God would be equally helpful. "This vet takes money?"

"She... might not?" Clearly he hadn't considered the possibility.

"For a long time we had to barter, but we do have currency here. And some people may still take it. If she wants to trade, we get supplies from the Future Foundation, and a vet might be happy to get some of the cat food."

"Life after the end of the world... truly, I have much to learn yet."

"At least you have Sonia-sensei to teach you!"

He smiled, briefly, but his mind seemed elsewhere. "Sonia. At one point, you spoke of a... golden makango?"

It took a great deal to make Sonia blush, but she was fairly certain she was visibly red, now. Her heart was certainly hammering. If he remembered that, he remembered what it meant... yet that was something that might never happen. "The only place makango can be found is in the mountains of Novoselic," she said, quietly, without looking up from Bastet. "It will be some time before it is safe to return there."

And when she did, it would most likely to be to face justice; a tribunal for regicide, treason, conspiracy, the destruction of national treasures. But that was in the future, still uncertain and hazy with distance, and the outcome was more uncertain yet. In a past that had only happened for the five survivors, she had promised herself never to give up hope, in the name of Gundam Tanaka's heroic sacrifice. And here and now, Gundam Tanaka was standing at her side, and he probably wasn't entirely sure whether or not he'd proposed marriage. But he'd be in agony waiting for an answer, regardless.

She stood up and smiled at him, folding her hands in front of herself. "The royal family strives to keep the oldest traditions alive, but that does not mean we cannot change with the times!"

"So, ah, for instance. A courtship that does not involve a makango... whatever that is... is still valid?"

"If we were to become betrothed and married under Jabberwock law, we could still go back to Novoselic and have a traditional ceremony there. Or in Japan, for that matter!"

"That... is good to know." He had never grown out of blushing, to her delight. But she had grown out of wasting time, and so she only hesitated for a moment before she reached to tug his scarf down and kiss him.


End file.
